Chapter Seven
First Session of the
Second Wheeling Convention

June 11-25, 1861

Due to the ratification of the Ordinance of Secession, on June 11, 1861,
delegates gathered at Washington Hall in Wheeling to determine a course of action for
northwestern Virginia. Committees on Organization, Rules and Credentials were immediately
established. The Committee on Credentials ruled that 88 delegates, representing 32 counties,
were entitled to seats in the convention, and the Committee on Permanent Organization selected
Arthur I. Boreman to serve as president of the convention. Boreman acknowledged that "in this
Convention we have no ordinary political gathering. We have no ordinary task before us. We
come here to carry out and execute, and it may be, to institute a government for ourselves. We
are determined to live
under a State Government in the United States of America and under
the Constitution of the United States. It requires stout hearts to
execute this purpose; it requires men of courage - of unfaltering
determination; and I believe, in the gentlemen who compose this
Convention, we have the stout hearts and the men who are determined
in this purpose."

Arthur Boreman

Other delegates would be accepted as members during
the convention. On June 13, the proceedings were moved to the
Custom House. John Carlile, representing the Committee on Business,
presented "A Declaration of the People
of Virginia," a document that called for the reorganization of
the government of Virginia on the grounds that due to Virginia's
decision to secede from the United States, all state government
offices had been vacated. On the following day, Carlile reported an
ordinance for this purpose, and the
debate began.

Several members of the convention, including Dennis
Dorsey of Monongalia County, initially opposed the reorganization
plan, and instead called for permanent separation from eastern
Virginia. Carlile, however, who had advocated the same approach in
the First Wheeling Convention, persuaded the delegates that
constitutional restrictions made it necessary for the formation of
a loyal government of Virginia, whose legislature could then give
permission for the creation of a new state. He noted, "I find that
even I, who first started the little stone down the mountain, have
now to apply the rubbers to other gentlemen who have outrun me in
the race, to check their impetuosity." Despite the disagreement as
to the approach to a division of the state, nearly all of the
delegates noted that the differences between East and West were
irreconcilable and recognized that separation was almost
inevitable. On June 19, the members of the convention voted
unanimously in favor of the ordinance reorganizing the government
of Virginia.

John Carlile

Daniel Polsley

On June 20, the delegates selected officials to fill
the offices of the Restored Government of Virginia. Francis
Pierpont, of Marion County, was elected governor, and Daniel
Polsley, lieutenant governor. On the following day, James Wheat of
Wheeling was elected attorney general. In a speech to the
delegates, Governor Pierpont defended the actions of the
Convention, stating that "now we are but recurring to the great
fundamental principle of our fathers, that to the loyal people of a
State belongs the law-making power of that State." On June 25,
1861, the convention adjourned until August 6.